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Domestic Furnishings

Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.

The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.

This tea caddy is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

January 15, 1708, is the date for the earliest known recipe for white hard-paste porcelain, but it took five more years of experiments and trials to develop a product for the market. So-called Böttger porcelain denotes the early years of production from 1713 until Böttger’s death in 1719, but versions of his hard-paste porcelain continued in use until the 1730s.

Several of these tea caddies exist with the raised Far Eastern style pattern of birds sitting in, and flying around, flowering shrubs, but not all are gilded like the caddy seen here. The same model was produced in Böttger red stoneware, but it is larger in size due to greater shrinkage in the white porcelain body. The difference between the two is a quarter inch of shrinkage overall (see ID number CE*68.168 with the cover missing). Gilding was introduced before color enameling but the work was carried out either in Dresden at the workshop of the goldsmith Johann Georg Funke the Elder or by Hausmaler (home painters) working in Augsburg.

Japanese prototypes influenced the hexagonal form of this caddy and the Meissen Manufactory produced several models of these baluster-shaped tea caddies during the early Böttger period. Sources for the motifs on this earlier group of objects came from prints and pattern books like Paul Decker’s (1677-1713) Muster für Lackierer and the 1688 publication by John Stalker and George Parker A Treatise for Japanning and Varnishing.

Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the elite of European society. For the growing numbers of people who could afford to purchase tea and coffee, but not the costly vessels for storage, preparation and the drinking of these beverages, less expensive versions of equipage became available made in earthenware pottery in imitation of Chinese blue and white porcelain, and tea caddies were also made in wood and tin as an alternative to porcelain or silver.

On the European exposure to Far Eastern porcelains see Emerson, J., Chen, J., Gardner Gates, M., 2000, Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe.

On the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850.

This coffeepot is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

January 15, 1708, is the date for the earliest known recipe for white hard-paste porcelain, but it took five more years of experiments and trials to develop a product for the market. So-called Böttger porcelain denotes the early years of production from 1713 until Böttger’s death in 1719, but versions of his hard-paste porcelain continued in use until the 1730s.

The coffeepot, based on a silver prototype, has a band of acanthus leaves applied to its lower part, probably designed by the court silversmith Johann Jacob Irminger. A delicate scrollwork pattern circles the pot and cover painted in gold. Unlike polychrome enamel colors, the technique of painting in gold on porcelain was achieved early in Meissen’s history. The Dresden goldsmith Johann Georg Funcke the Elder (dates unknown) was employed to work for Meissen in 1713, and continued to do so until 1726. After the gold was painted onto the glazed porcelain it was fired at a low temperature (1382°F - 750°C) that turned the gold black and it then had to be polished to recover its shine. Böttger porcelains intended for decoration in gold and enamel were shipped from Meissen to Funke’s workshop in Dresden on the river Elbe. Considerable quantities of early Meissen wares were sent to Augsburg for enameling and gilding in the workshops of Hausmaler (home painter) families like the Auffenwerth and Seuter enterprises.

Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the elite of European society. For the growing numbers of people who could afford to purchase tea and coffee, but not the costly vessels for storage, preparation, and the drinking of these beverages, less expensive versions of equipage became available made in earthenware pottery in imitation of Chinese blue and white porcelain, the so-called Delftwares or tin-glaze pottery, and also the tea bowls and saucers imported from China through the European East India Companies. By the middle of the eighteenth century European pottery and porcelain manufacturers provided consumers with less costly choices for the polite social practice of drinking tea and coffee.

This piece was made after 1723 because it has a crossed swords mark in underglaze blue introduced in that year.

For a tea bowl and saucer with the same design see den Blaauwen, A. L., 2000, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, pp. 34-35.

On the history of the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to Europe see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850.

This teapot and cover is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

The teapot was made in red stoneware, a very hard and dense type of ceramic similar in appearance to the Chinese Yixing ceramics which inspired their imitation at Meissen. Red stoneware, enriched with iron oxides, preceded porcelain in the Dresden laboratory where physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719) experimented with raw materials fused by solar energy amplified through a burning glass. Success in red stoneware was an important step towards development of white porcelain.

The teapot’s shape is taken from a silver prototype of contemporary European baroque design. The body of the teapot was press-molded in several parts to pick up the lambrequin motifs on the lower half. The female masks were added from separate molds, as were the scrolled handle and the spout in the form of an eagle’s head. The finial on the cover represents a globe artichoke often seen in baroque vessels of the period made in silver and ceramic, but here it is a plaster restoration. Beading around the foot of the teapot and on the outer edge of the cover is also a typical decorative element of silverware here transposed into a ceramic material. Bottger's red stoneware is not glazed as the dense material once fired is impervious to liquids.

Unlike many teapots made in ceramic materials this object does not represent a less expensive version of a silver vessel. It was a rare and costly item made in a material new to ceramic manufactures and a challenge to the men who worked with it. It took many skilled hands under the direction of Johann Friedrich Böttger to produce the red stonewares, and this teapot was probably based on a silver prototype designed by the court goldsmith, Johann Jacob Irminger (1635-1724).

On Meissen's red stoneware see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 15-19.

On Yixing stoneware see Fang Lili, 2011, Chinese Ceramics, Cambridge University Press, p. 115, Zisha-the Taste of Tea; Lo, K.S., 1986, The Stoneware of Yixing from the Ming Period to the Present Day.

This cup is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

The cup was made in red stoneware, a very hard and dense type of ceramic similar in appearance to the Chinese Yixing ceramics which inspired their imitation at Meissen. Red stoneware, enriched with iron oxides, preceded porcelain in the Dresden laboratory where physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719) experimented with raw materials fused by solar energy amplified through a burning glass. Success in red stoneware was an important step towards development of white porcelain.

The bell-shaped cup, of unglazed red-brown stoneware has a large and somewhat awkward lyre-shaped handle. The lines on the lower quarter of the cup and on the foot ring were turned into the clay when it was at a “leather-hard” stage; strong enough to hold its shape, but still with sufficient moisture in the clay to turn the detail smoothly. Red stoneware did not require a glaze as it was a dense material impervious to liquids. There were no Chinese prototypes for cups with handles and this object was therefore a European design.

On red stoneware see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp.15-19.

On Yixing stonewares see Lo, K.S., 1986, The Stonewares of Yixing from the Ming Period to the Present Day; Fang Lili, 2011, Chinese Ceramics, Cambridge University Press, p. 115 Zisha-the Taste of Tea.

This teapot is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

January 15, 1708, is the date for the earliest known recipe for white hard-paste porcelain, but it took five more years of experiments and trials to develop a product for the market. So-called Böttger porcelain denotes the early years of production from 1713 until Böttger’s death in 1719, but versions of his hard-paste porcelain continued in use in the 1720s and carry his name.

The teapot is of a conventional shape familiar to us and one of several versions with variations in the handle and applied decoration (compare ID number CE*68.174 a,b). The teapot is unusual in its decoration however, with a single rose in relief applied on both sides. The metal finial on the cover of the teapot is a nineteenth-century restoration.

Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the elite of European society. For the growing numbers of people who could afford to purchase tea and coffee, but not the costly vessels for storage, preparation and the drinking of these beverages, less expensive versions of equipage became available made in earthenware pottery in imitation of Chinese blue and white porcelain, the so-called Delftwares or tin-glaze pottery, and also the tea bowls and saucers imported from China through the European East India Companies. By the middle of the eighteenth century European pottery and porcelain manufacturers provided consumers with less costly choices for the polite social practice of drinking tea and coffee.

At the time this teapot was made Meissen had not yet developed durable enamel colors to ornament on white porcelain.

On the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to Europe see Ukers, W.H.,1922,1935, All About Coffee and All About Tea; Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World'sMost Popular Drug; Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850. Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 44-45.

This knife handle is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

The knife handle was made in red stoneware, a very hard and dense type of ceramic similar in appearance to the Chinese Yixing ceramics which inspired their imitation at Meissen. Red stoneware, enriched with iron oxides, preceded porcelain in the Dresden laboratory where physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719) experimented with raw materials fused by solar energy amplified through a burning glass. Success in red stoneware was an important step towards development of white porcelain.

The knife handle is of polished red-brown stoneware molded in a pistol shape. The blade is silver.

Johann Friedrich Böttger recruited highly skilled artisans working in other materials to refine the red stoneware products and associate them with luxury artifacts made from agate, serpentine, and jasper. Dresden court artisans demonstrated their virtuosity in the transformation of raw materials into artifacts that dazzle the eye, examples of which can be seen today in the Grünes Gewölbe (the Green Vaults) in Dresden. Such objects brought prestige to the Saxon Elector and King of Poland Augustus II in competition with similar collections held in the major European courts, the early eighteenth-century Kunstkammern that held a large collections of artifacts where the virtuoso skills of court artisans and artists became a public statement of the knowledge, taste, and wealth of a ruler.

On the Dresden Kunstkammer see the 1978 exhibition catalog The Splendor of Dresden: Five Centuries of Art Collecting.

This leaf dish is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

January 15, 1708, is the date for the earliest known recipe for white hard-paste porcelain, but it took five more years of experiments and trials to develop a product for the market. So-called Böttger porcelain denotes the early years of production from 1713 until Böttger’s death in 1719, but versions of his hard-paste porcelain continued in use until the 1730s.

This small dish is based on a Chinese brush washer made in milky white porcelain, the so-called blanc de chine fired in the Dehua kilns in Fujian Province. The dishes were produced in molds for the use of scholars who practiced calligraphy, and in China they were not decorated except for a floral sprig on the base that served as a stabilizer. The Meissen copy also has a floral sprig on the base with the typical twig-shaped handle (compare with ID numbers CE*75.194 and CE*75.193, A,B, painted by a Hausmaler; an enamel painter who worked outside the Meissen Manufactory). It is not clear how these objects were used in Western Europe.

For comparable examples see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.84.

On Blanc de Chine see Kerr, R., Ayers’, J., 2002, Blanc de Chine: Porcelain from Dehua, (catalog of the Hickley Collection in Singapore), with a contribution from Eva Ströber on the Dresden collection of Dehua porcelain.

This tray is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

Early in Meissen’s history Johann Friedrich Böttger’s team searched for success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of the Chinese and Japanese prototypes in the Dresden collections. Böttger’s porcelain, however, was fired at a temperature higher than Chinese porcelain or German stoneware. As in China, the underglaze blue pigment was painted on the clay surface before firing, but when glazed and fired the cobalt sank into the porcelain body and ran into the glaze instead of maintaining a sharp image like the Chinese originals. The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II was not satisfied with the inferior product. Success in underglaze blue painting eluded Böttger’s team until Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775) appropriated a workable formula developed by the metallurgist David Köhler (1673-1723). Success required adjustment to the porcelain paste by replacing the alabaster flux with feldspar and adding a percentage of porcelain clay (kaolin) to the cobalt pigment. Underglaze blue painting became a reliable and substantial part of the manufactory’s output in the 1730s.

The “rock and bird” pattern seen in the center of the tray was adapted by the Meissen manufactory from Japanese porcelain models made in Arita. Japanese enamel painters on porcelain imitated Chinese designs, but also transformed them into a decorative style informed by Japanese painting schools. Several European porcelain manufactories then imitated Meissen’s imitation of the Japanese prototype of a flying bird and flowering tree beside a rock. Placed in symmetry around the "rock and bird" are butterflies and sprays of "Indian flowers" based on Japanese and Chinese motifs.

The corners of the tray are molded in a rocaille ornament, a European style of the mid-eighteenth century that referred, somewhat loosely at times, to natural forms like shells, rocks, flowing water, and foliage.

Underglaze blue painting requires skills similar to a watercolor artist. There are no second chances, and once the pigment touches the clay or biscuit-fired surface it cannot be eradicated easily. Many of Meissen’s underglaze blue designs were, and still are, “pounced” onto the surface of the vessel before painting. Pouncing is an ancient technique in which finely powdered charcoal or graphite is allowed to fall through small holes pierced through the outlines of a paper design, thereby serving as a guide for the painter and maintaining a relative standard in the component parts of Meissen table services.

This rinsing bowl is part of the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychoanalysis and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

This bowl was once part of a tea and coffee service onto which were painted topographical scenes of Saxon places of interest. Featured on the bowl is the Königstein Fortress, built on the top of the rocky prominence in the center left of the image, which lies south of Dresden close to the river Elbe seen on the right. The fortress, which still exists, stands on an outcrop of sandstone sculpted over millenia by the waters of the Elbe, and it is situated in a region unique to this part of south-eastern Germany known as Saxon Switzerland, later to become a landscape fascinating to early nineteenth century painters like Caspar David Friedrich. The second painting depicts the Sonnenstein castle above the town of Pirna, which lies south-east of Dresden on the banks of the Elbe. In the sixteenth century Pirna flourished as a merchant town, and was a center for Protestant minorities seeking refuge from persecution in Catholic Central Europe. Bernardo Belotto/Caneletto (1721-1780), the nephew of Giovanni Antonio Caneletto (1697-1768), his pupil and assistant in Venice before leaving to study in Rome, painted several scenes of Pirna, but at the Meissen Manufactory both these images, painted in onglaze enamels, were after engravings executed in 1726 by Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752). Thiele painted many landscapes of Saxon sites, and among his pupils were artists who later developed what became known as the Dresden landscape school, active until well into the nineteenth century. The bowl is an example of Meissen’s use of sources from the work of contemporary artists, an exchange made possible through the increasing volume of prints supplied to the manufactory. (Marx, H., Die Schoensten Ansichten aus Sachsen: Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) zum 250 Todestag, 2002).

The bowl has a sea-green ground color, and the images in the reserves are painted in polychrome enamels. The interior and exterior gold scrollwork and foot ring frame the piece. The interior has another miniature landscape that remains unidentified and is probably imaginary, surrounded by elaborate scrollwork in purple and iron-red enamels and gold. When part of a tea and coffee service, the bowl was used to take the last dregs of a beverage before a cup was rinsed and refilled. It is likely that a service of this kind was not much used in a practical sense, but put on display for admiration. (See a milk pot from this service in Pietsch, U., Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, 2011, p.379, for a sugar bowl see The Rita and Fritz Markus Collection of European Ceramics and Enamels, Museum of FIne Arts, Boston, 1984, p. 128.).

This tankard is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.

The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.

The tankard was made in red stoneware, a very hard and dense type of ceramic similar in appearance to the Chinese Yixing ceramics which inspired their imitation at Meissen. Red stoneware, enriched with iron oxides, preceded porcelain in the Dresden laboratory where physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719) experimented with raw materials fused by solar energy amplified through a burning glass. Success in red stoneware was an important step towards development of white porcelain.

The tankard has a silver mounting on both the rim of the vessel and the cover with the hinge attached to the strap handle. Its simple form is enhanced by turned molding on the cover, the top, and base of the vessel. The red-brown stoneware is finished by polishing, a technique Böttger borrowed from glass making and lapidary work.

Tankards originated in beer-drinking countries, and in early modern Europe the middle-class beer drinker had stoneware and tin-glazed tankards with tin or pewter mountings that were rich in various regional styles. Pewter and glass tankards were also common. Goldsmiths produced luxury vessels for the merchant and ruling class, and the Meissen red stoneware tankards were transitional objects emulating vessels made from silver and from cut and polished semi-precious stones mounted with gold and silver gilt.

On Yixing stonewares see Lo, K.S., 1986, The Stoneware of Yixing from the Ming Period to the Present Day.